


The Quiet

by DragonArmy_TimeGirl



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Gen, Philip's Death, it's quiet uptown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonArmy_TimeGirl/pseuds/DragonArmy_TimeGirl
Summary: Inspired by Tumblr post: "Your characters are like geodes. If you want to see what they're really made of, you must break them."
Or how Alexander muses on the quiet in his life.





	

He never did like the quiet before. 

It never truly got quiet in bustling New York, but it did quite a bit in Nevis. 

That's why it was so easy to hear his screams when his mother died. 

There was no doctor running to his aide, for the doctor was already there. Yet, to no avail, he had been the one to survive while his mother's lifeless body lay beside him. 

She was so quiet. 

The quietest moments probably came from Nevis. When his mother died, when she was buried, and when he spent time being shifted from home to home. 

The quietest, however, was when the hurricane struck. 

Hurricanes weren't all that uncommon in the Caribbean, but this one was probably the most devastating. 

There had been a moment of quiet in that destructive act, of course. The eye of a hurricane was always peaceful, always a break in the storm of life. That is, until it passes and you're left with only the ruins of the town you once knew. 

He didn't truly know whether they did it out of charity or annoyance. They said they wanted only the best for him, but he believed somewhat that they wanted to get rid of him. 

America held no quiet, of course. What with the throes of revolution amassing around him, who would stop for a sense of quiet. 

Silence overthrew him two times during the war: one, at Laurens' death a year before the war took it's final bow and two, at the British surrender in Yorktown. 

These were two very different silences, of course. One created a rift in the family of aide-de-camps that Washington had built. 

In the other came the awe that they had won against one of the greatest armies in the world. 

The next part was the reorganizing. He had managed to start a family, start a firm, start a country. 

Quiet was nowhere to be found once Jefferson arrived. 

There was something about the Francophile: his hypocrisy, the flair of his coat, the condescending sir surrounding him. These were all little annoyances to Hamilton that caused him to explode during meetings. 

Somewhere along the way, he met Maria. 

Ah, how the Schuylers only asked for quiet in the country. Yet, he had work to do, pages to write, people to prove wrong. 

Maria came in at the most opportune of times, with Hamilton in need of release, tense from work and stress. 

Quiet was gone and had yet to be found once again. 

The Reynolds Pamphlet seemed to be a mistake and only made the crowds grow louder. He had sacrificed his marriage for his legacy, only that betrayed him as well. 

Still, he found quiet soon again. 

Only this time, it was marked with a devastating screech and the sound of a bullet lodging itself between his son's ribs. 

Philip's death was tedious and heartbreaking. He was glad to have gotten in all the words of his goodbye, but he would have traded every single one to have his son not suffer for 14 hours at the hand of an infection. 

He felt his heart ache in his chest; fathers should not have to bury their own sons. It should have been the other way around; it should have been him. 

How quiet the world was, aside from Eliza's sobs. How quiet the world was, when they buried their eldest child, when they moved uptown, when they sat in mourning for days, not saying a word to one another. 

He started going to church again. It was his only escape; his only hope of forgiveness for what he'd done. He should've told him to shoot, or to surrender. 

Why did he have to be so much like him?

Philip deserved to be more like Eliza: kind and patient, never giving up on somebody and never losing faith in good. 

Philip didn't deserve to be like him: a flawed flurry of ink and fury, weaved together by ambition and determination. 

Philip, most of all, deserved to be so much more. He deserved to be more than the either of them could ever strive to be. 

God, if he had only said something else. If he had only been less ready to whip out a pistol. 

Philip would've loved it uptown. The quiet would've given him enough peace for his poetry, or piano. 

It was so quiet. Uptown held a heavy silence and, for once, so did his mind.


End file.
